Loyalty
by Starkreactor
Summary: Tag for Cold Blood. What if Rory hadn't taken the shot for the Doctor? Would the nurse be able to save him? And what exactly IS Amy's relationship with the Doctor? Will her feelings keep Rory from doing what's right?Doctor!whump/Eleven!whump. Not slash!


This story was requested by Prowlersgirl, and I was more than happy to oblige!

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"DOCTOR! LOOK OUT!" Rory shouted, trying to grab the Doctor's shoulder just as the enraged Silurian fired her shot. His fingers missed by a fraction of an inch, but unfortunately for the Doctor the Silurian's shot did not. The energy blast hit him straight in the chest, directly where his heart would have been if he were human. Grimacing in pain, the Doctor fell to his knees, gripping his chest as the Silurian fell dead, her goal fulfilled.

Panic written across Amy's face, she fell to her knees beside the Doctor, holding his head in her lap and stroking his hair. "Rory, help him!" she said desperately as the Doctor struggled for breath, his eyes squeezing shut in agony.

Rory knelt too, gently taking the Doctor's fingers and prying them away from his chest, undoing the charred fabric of what was left of the Doctor's shirt so he could get a good look at the wound. The skin looked angry, red, and burnt, blood seeping from the pores around the wound like an unnatural sweat.

"You're going to be alright Doctor." Rory soothed, not sure if that was the case or not. "I'll help you, just hold on alright?"

"T-TARDIS." The Doctor gasped, his body shaking as he slipped into shock.

"The TARDIS is right here Doctor." Rory said gently, nodding at Amy to open the door. "We'll get you inside."

The Doctor's body only shuddered in response, his breath coming in gasps.

"Amy." Rory said calmly as his fiancé opened the doors. "We need to get him inside and keep him warm, his body is going into shock."

Amy nodded; returning to Rory and helping him heave the Doctor up, carrying him inside. They got him as far as the TARDIS couch and lay him down, unable to prevent a cry of pain as his wound was jarred.

"Doctor, do you have anything on the TARDIS that can help us? A burn kit, or a medical room or something?" Rory asked, placing two fingers gently on the Doctor's throat to monitor his pulse.

"M-med lab." The Doctor stuttered, his body shuddering again.

"Good, a medical lab, but where is it Doctor?" Rory pressed, the Doctor's rapid pulse worrying him.

"T-TARDIS will show y-you" was his ground answer.

"The TARDIS will show us?" Rory repeated, genuinely confused. "But the TARDIS is just a machine, isn't it?"

"Oh!" Amy exclaimed, jumping up. "No, she isn't! The Doctor said she was alive, and that he can communicate with her telepathically. Maybe if we ask her for help in our minds, she will show us where the room is!"

"Hold on-" Rory said "_She_? You mean it's alive and we are _inside_ it? Are you sure she's not going to eat us or something?"

"Of course not, don't be daft!" Amy scolded, squeezing her eyes shut. "Now shh, I'm trying to talk to her."

Rory looked around nervously but did as he was told and stayed quiet, turning his attention back on at the Doctor when his body shuddered again. The Doctor was looking pale, and his breathing was still labored, something that made Rory very nervous.

"There!" Amy suddenly exclaimed, pointing at a hallway. "It's that way."

"How do you know?" Rory asked, standing and looking where Amy was pointing.

"She told me." Amy said simply, moving to grip the Doctor's arm, looping it over her shoulders.

"Alright. If you say so." Rory said skeptically, taking the Doctor's other arm and shifting him up with an apologetic look. The Doctor only grit his teeth in response, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. Following Amy's direction, they soon made it to a clean, white room with a medical bed in the center and several monitors sitting around.

"Good, now help me get him on the bed Amy, and then I need you to see if you can find any medication that will help him with the pain. If we don't get the pain down the shock could get worse and give him a hearts attack."

Amy nodded, helping Rory maneuver the Doctor onto the bed. Their friend had now become unconscious from the pain, and Rory reached for the EKG leads as he checked the Doctor's pulse with the other hand. "Still racing." He muttered, attaching the leads to the Time Lord's chest.

Amy rifled through a cabinet nearby, following the TARDIS' mental probes as she searched for the intravenous drip the ship had told her about. She soon found it, rushing it to Rory. "Here, she said to use this but nothing else."

Rory nodded, the rapid beeps on the heart monitor invading his subconscious. "Are his hearts supposed to beat that quickly?" Rory asked, quickly exposing the inside of the Doctor's arm and finding a vein, setting up the drip.

"I don't know, am I supposed to know everything about him?" Amy asked defensively, folding her arms and wishing there was more she could do. It was worse than unnerving to see her childhood hero hurt and possibly dying. The Doctor was supposed to be invincible, and until then he had seemed so.

"I'm sorry! You've just been traveling longer with him, and gotten more…_intimate_ with him, I thought you might know something." Rory said, hurt lacing his tone.

"Rory I-" She started, but Rory waved a hand in dismissal.

"Don't Amy. Not now." He turned away, disposing of the wrapping from the needle and tubing, refusing to look at her.

"Rory, please." Amy said quietly, taking a step towards her boyfriend. "Don't do this. Don't- cut me off."

"What? Like you did to me?" Rory said suddenly, pain and anger filling his voice and eyes as he turned to face her. "Don't pretend like you didn't Amy, I can see it. All you could talk about when you were little was him, and the only reason you ended up with me is because you thought he wasn't coming back. Well guess what, big surprise, you take off with him the night before our wedding of all things! Suddenly, I'm not good enough, you don't need the stupid nurse to keep you loved anymore, you have your magic Doctor back and the second you think he might be in trouble you turn to me again!"

Amy shook her head, tears filling her eyes. "It's not like that Rory, it was never like that….."

"THEN WHAT WAS IT LIKE?" Rory demanded, loosing his temper fully for the first time since Amy knew him.

"I DIDN'T HAVE A DAD, ALRIGHT?" Amy shouted, tears now streaking down her cheeks.

Rory stepped back, affronted. "I didn't have a dad and he showed up and made me feel safe, made me feel like there was more in this life and someone to watch over me while I slept. I love him Rory, but I was never _in love _with him." She said, her voice broken and quiet now. "You can't imagine what it is to grow up without parents Rory, and I'm glad you can't, but this is what happens."

Rory stared at her for a moment, but then his expression softened, and he stepped forward, embracing her gently. "I'm so sorry Amy….I didn't mean to loose my temper like that." Rory murmured into her shoulder. "I just- wasn't sure and I got jealous. I'm so sorry." He stepped back, placing his forehead against hers and wiping her tears away with his thumbs. "I'm just so afraid of loosing you, I love you Amy."

"I know. I love you too Rory." Amy said, looking into his eyes.

Rory kissed her deeply, holding her tenderly. "He's going to be ok." He assured her, giving her an extra reassuring squeeze. "I'll make him OK."

Thanks to the TARDIS' help, the Doctor slept peacefully for several hours, and Rory had time to read part of a translated version of a Gallifreyan medical text that the TARDIS had in the cabinet. Most of the organs and structures mentioned had human counterparts, but some didn't even begin to make sense to Rory and he was determined to quiz the Doctor about them when he was well again.

Amy faithfully stayed by the Doctor's side, doing whatever Rory needed so that the nurse could stay by his patient 24-7. As Amy brought in Rory's fifth cup of tea, the Doctor stirred, a grimace splicing his features. Rory immediately jumped to his feet, the medical book sliding to the floor.

"Doctor, how are you feeling?" Rory asked, Amy setting down the tea and taking the Doctor's hand anxiously in her own.

"My chest hurts…." The Doctor murmured, bringing up a hand to touch his throat. "And I'm bow-tie-less." He cracked an eye open. "Is that even a word? Bow-tie-less?" He asked, his voice scratchy. "Guess it is now."

"Guess you're not too far gone." Rory said, hiding a smile.

"I suppose not." The Doctor said tiredly, smiling at his companions. "By the way, what did happen?"

"You don't remember?" Amy asked worriedly, but Rory shook his head.

"It's not uncommon for slight memory loss to occur after a severe trauma Amy." He assured her. "You were shot by a Silurian gun. As far as I can tell your internal organs didn't sustain too much damage, but you have severe burns and your hearts have been beating pretty rapidly the entire time you've been asleep. I don't know what is normal for you, but according to this text around three hundred a minute between both hearts is right. You've been at four hundred and above."

The Doctor nodded weakly, resting a hand above his hearts as their rapid fluttering continued inside of him. "Yes, it's the electrical disturbance. I'm lucky she thought I was human. Silurian weaponry is designed to disrupt the electrical signals in the body, and the electricity remains in the tissues for a long while in an organic form. If my hearts were beating any slower they might just stop." He said, voice soft and tired.

"Is there anything we can do?" Rory asked, picking up the medical journal and flipping through it again. "The journal says something about a certain chemical that works sort of like adrenaline to stabilize abnormal cardiac rhythms, but it's extremely rare?"

The Doctor nodded again, his eyes slowly drifting shut of their own accord. "The Myronian flower." He said, voice barely above a whisper. "The juice helps to break down organic forms of electricity and stimulate normal currents in cardiac tissue. But the flower only existed on the moon of Gallifrey, and that was destroyed long ago."

"But this is a time machine, can't we just go back and find it?" Amy asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "Gallifrey's past is one I can never re-visit."

"But why no-" Amy started, but Rory shook his head, silencing her.

"Is there anything else we can do?" Rory asked, gripping the Doctor's hand in an effort to keep him conscious just a little while longer.

"Just let me sleep….if my hearts accelerate beyond five hundred, then shock me."

The Doctor was out again before Rory even had time to protest.

"Shock him, what does he mean by that?" Amy asked, concerned.

"He means those I expect." Rory said, nodding towards the defibrillator paddles sitting close by.

Amy's eyes widened. "But won't that kill him?" She asked in alarm.

Rory shook his head. "I sure hope not Amy, let's just pray I don't have to use them."

It was only an hour later when Rory was jolted from an involuntary sleep by the shrill beeping of the cardiac monitor. The Doctor's pulses had gone up suddenly and violently, going from a near normal three hundred and forty, to a deadly six hundred in a few seconds. His body shook violently as a seizure wracked him.

Rory immediately jumped to his feet, tilting the Doctor's head back and closing his jaw so he didn't bite off his own tongue, shouting for Amy at the same time. Amy jolted awake from her spot on the other side of the Doctor, her body freezing as she stared wide-eyed at the Doctor's seizing form.

"Amy! You have to help me, hold him down until he quiets!" Rory said firmly, jolting Amy out of her shocked state. Almost immediately she grabbed the Doctor's wrists, squeezing her eyes shut as she helped to hold him down. She couldn't bare to look at him.

As quickly as it had started, the seizure stopped, and the Doctor's body lay still like a broken rag doll. The two lines that had been spiking rapidly on the heart monitor suddenly descended into fibrillation, the shrill warning claxon deafening. Amy gasped in shock, stepping back and covering her mouth as her eyes brimmed with tears.

Rory sprang into action, grabbing the paddles and charging them up. He had never actually had to work on someone like this before, but he had been trained and the Doctor was depending on him. Putting his training at the forefront of his mind, Rory placed the paddles over one of the Doctor's hearts and shocked him, yelling "Clear!"

Amy flinched as the Time Lord's body jerked and then lay still again, one spike on the monitor weakly showing. Moving to the other heart, Rory shocked that one too, having to work on it twice before it began to beat again.

'

The Doctor no longer in danger, Amy slumped back in her chair, her hands trembling and her eyes wet with unshed tears while Rory used his stethoscope to check the Doctor's hearts and lungs for damage. After a while, Rory came to Amy's side and hugged her from behind, dropping a soft kiss into her hair for comfort.

"He's alright now." He whispered, his own body shaking from the adrenaline crash. "He's going to be alright. The extra electricity seems to be gone now."

Amy only nodded numbly, turning and burying her face in Rory's shoulder. "I never wanted to see him like that Rory, I never thought I would." She whispered, squeezing her eyes shut to banish the scene from her memory.

"I didn't either." Rory admitted, rubbing her back soothingly. "But he's strong, he'll pull through alright. The worst is over."

To the group's relief, Rory was right. After the Doctor's seizure his hearts stabilized and he breathed easier, almost as if his body had re-set. Maybe it had. Whatever the case, the Doctor woke up six hours later, looking much better than before.

"Doctor!" Amy said, jumping up. "How are you feeling?"

"Blimy…" He muttered as he came to. "Still no bow-tie. I feel naked."

Amy smacked his shoulder gently and smiled. "Guess you're feeling better." She teased gently, relief evident in her tone. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm always all right." He assured her with a smile, reaching up a hand to stroke back her hair. "Thanks to you and Rory." He added, smiling gratefully at Rory. "Thanks for not loosing your head mate." He said. "You'll make a great Doctor some day."

Rory smiled. "Just doing my job Doctor, just doing my job."


End file.
